


Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Aren't Dead

by gayfranzkafka



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:21:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25577242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayfranzkafka/pseuds/gayfranzkafka
Summary: BJ & Hawkeye debate the nature of their reality and relationship.______HAWK (mock surprise): There’s a war on?B.J.: There’s wounded.HAWK (more serious now): But is there a war?B.J. (still joking): There’s a military engagement.HAWK (after a second’s uncharacteristic hesitation): Oh, how lovely. I do hope we’ll be invited to the wedding.B.J.: I’m not sure this will all end with a wedding at this point. It’s been such a long engagement.HAWK: How long? Three years? Eight?B.J.: Longer than propriety calls for, certainly.HAWK: So if it’s not going to end with a wedding, how’s it going to end, then? A funeral?B.J.: I hope not. At least not for this guy. (He looks down at their patient.)HAWK: No, not for this guy. What about for us?B.J.: What about us?HAWK: I mean, a wedding or a funeral?
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 77
Kudos: 147





	Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Aren't Dead

**Author's Note:**

> “GUIL (retiring): I'm relieved… Your capacity for trust made me wonder if perhaps... you, alone...(He turns on him suddenly, reaches out a hand.) Touch. (ROS claps his hand. GUIL pulls him up to him.) (More intensely): We have been spinning coins together since - (He releases him almost as violently.) This is not the first time we spun coins!” – Tom Stoppard, _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_

Act I

Two doctors stand at an operating table. Both wear white surgical hats, gloves, masks, and gowns over green army-issued clothing. B.J. Hunnicutt (B.J.) holds a clamp while Hawkeye Pierce (HAWK) holds a scalpel. They appear to be performing surgery, but there is no body on the table, just a pile of white cloth. Behind them is an old desk chair and a wooden desk with papers on it. Among these papers are many letters, a few maps (the kind you get for free at AAA for road trips), and an unbound book/script. There is also a bathrobe, a pair of Groucho glasses, a Hawaiian shirt, a copy of _The Last of the Mohicans_ , and a chess board. There is little else in the room. The lights go up.

HAWK ( _overly-dramatic_ ): Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (1)

B.J.: What?

HAWK ( _just now seeming to realize B.J. is there_ ): Oh, sorry, I was just monologue-ing.

B.J.: That’s nice, did you write it yourself?

HAWK: No, it’s an old cataclysm. ( _unsure what word he means_ ) Cataclysm? Cannonism? Euphemism? Catechism?

B.J.: Cat-echism? I think you mean dog-ism.

HAWK: Dogma? No, I’ve never bothered with dogma.

B.J.: No dogma but vodka.

HAWK: Aw, that’s bad. Sponge.

_B.J. hands him the sponge. HAWK takes the sponge and sets it delicately in the white cloth as if there is a body there._

HAWK: Beej, where did this guy come from?

B.J.: I don’t know. The war. ( _As the conversation continues, they continue to operate._ )

HAWK ( _mock surprise_ ): There’s a war on?

B.J.: There’s wounded.

HAWK ( _more serious now_ ): But is there a war?

B.J. ( _still joking_ ): There’s a military engagement.

HAWK ( _after a second’s uncharacteristic hesitation_ ): Oh, how lovely. I do hope we’ll be invited to the wedding.

B.J.: I’m not sure this will all end with a wedding at this point. It’s been such a long engagement.

HAWK: How long? Three years? Eight?

B.J.: Longer than propriety calls for, certainly.

HAWK: So if it’s not going to end with a wedding, how’s it going to end, then? A funeral?

B.J.: I hope not. At least not for this guy. ( _He looks down at their patient._ )

HAWK: No, not for this guy. What about for us?

B.J.: What about us?

HAWK: I mean, a wedding or a funeral?

B.J. ( _laughs_ ): Well, that’s not up to me. I suppose it depends whether this is a comedy or a tragedy.

HAWK: I don’t know. I can’t tell whether everyone’s smiling or not underneath these masks. ( _He gestures to their surgical masks_ )

B.J.: Ah, Schrödinger’s mask.

HAWK: I think you mean drama masks. Thalia and Melpomene. Sock and buskin.

B.J.: Sock and buskin?

HAWK: I forget you played basketball in high school.

B.J.: How could my well-toned physique ever let you forget?

HAWK: I don’t know, but every day I try. ( _Pause._ ) With dialogue like this, how could it be a tragedy?

B.J.: This dialogue _is_ a tragedy.

HAWK: Still, our patients do have a 97.8% survival rate. We just have to look up all the ones we sent home and ask them if they’ve gotten married since then. Figure our ratio out.

B.J.: More statistics for the army to keep track of. They’re so good at that.

HAWK: Don’t you ever wonder, sometimes, though, what becomes of these guys?

B.J.: Of course I do.

HAWK: We fix them up, send them off, and then they don’t even bother to write. You’d think the army could send fresh roses, sometime, by way of thanks, instead of always fresh wounded.

B.J.: Ah, but that would bring our 97.8% survival rate down, Hawk. I think we’re all much better with scalpels than trowels or spades.

HAWK: You’re right. I’ve always preferred diamonds myself.

B.J.: I’ll keep that in mind next Christmas.

HAWK: With what the army’s paying you, it’ll stay all in your mind. They say it’s the thought that counts, though.

B.J.: Only the best dreams for you, dear.

_Pause._

HAWK: Still, though, don’t you start to wonder, sometimes, if it’s all still out there?

B.J.: If what is?

HAWK: All of it. The world outside of this M*A*S*H unit. We don’t see the war, not the front, anyway, hardly ever—

B.J.( _interjecting_ ): It’s one of those things that looks better from behind.

HAWK ( _ignoring B.J.’s comment_ ):—and we haven’t seen home in years.

B.J.: You’re very doubting Thomas for someone who’s certainly touched the wounds himself. I can assure you at least that we still have Seoul. You know I just got back from there myself. Saw it with my own two eyes.

HAWK: Did you?

B.J. ( _hesitating fractionally_ ): Yes.

HAWK: But do you remember it?

B.J.: I got a haircut there. Aren’t you going to tell me my hair looks nicer today?

HAWK: Not until you tell me I have beautiful eyes. But do you _remember_ getting the haircut?

B.J.: No one _remembers_ getting a haircut. It’s like when you get in your car, and then, without thinking, you’re home. What is there to remember? Anyway, I don’t see why you feel the need to get so existential today. It’s just another routine day facing the horrors of war. What makes today different from any other day?

HAWK: On all other days we eat leavened products and matzah, and on this day only matzah.

B.J.: What?

HAWK: Oh, never mind.

_They work in silence for a moment. HAWK wipes sweat from his forehead with his forearm._

HAWK: Beej, how long have we been operating?

B.J.: On this patient? I don’t know. I lost count of how long we’ve been in surgery in general after hour fourteen.

HAWK: But I mean – ( _he looks confused_ ) has it really been that long?

B.J. ( _now also looking confused_ ): I don’t know. Has it?

( _Both doctors work in silence for a minute. Then, suddenly:_ )

B.J. ( _tense_ ): Hawk, I think we’re losing him.

HAWK ( _determined_ ): Oh no you don’t, buddy. B.J., open up the ribs. I’ll massage the heart.

_HAWK puts his scalpel down and moves as if to start massaging the heart but seems to suddenly realize there is no patient on the table. He begins to frantically look within the white sheets._

B.J.: Hawk, we’re losing him!

HAWK: We’ve lost the patient.

B.J.: Not yet.

HAWK: No, I mean… ( _HAWK gestures to the empty sheets. Realization dawns on B.J.’s face._ )

B.J.: We lost the patient.

_B.J. means this in the sense other than death. Both doctors stare, dumbfounded for a minute, at the empty sheets. Then HAWK strips off his gloves, dropping them onto the empty table. He proceeds to take off his mask so it hangs from his neck. B.J. looks at HAWK, then slowly sets the clamp down and removes his own mask and gloves. HAWK looks around the room, more interested than concerned. Though B.J. at first appears the far more distressed of the two of them, he quickly seems to almost forget the source of this distress and his agitation fades much more quickly than HAWK’s. Let this be a continued character note._

HAWK: Time for a scene change?

B.J.: Huh?

HAWK: I mean, wouldn’t you like a change of scenery? Where are we, again?

B.J.: Vietnam – No, Korea. I think. Yes, Korea.

HAWK ( _looking around the room_ ): With a view like this it’s hard to tell. 

B.J.: So is it a tragedy, then?

HAWK: What?

B.J.: We lost the patient.

HAWK: Lost track of.

B.J.: What?

HAWK: He didn’t die, so much, not in the classical sense.

B.J.: What’s the classical sense?

HAWK: It’s that part of our ear that helps us appreciate Bach’s cello suites.

B.J.: Oh, come on.

HAWK: I really do get the sense I’m supposed to be somewhere, though.

B.J.: Well you’re here, aren’t you? That’s somewhere. We just came from surgery. I don’t see where else this is for us to go.

HAWK: Except to Hell in a hand basket.

B.J.: I’ve heard it's lovely this time of year, and Virgil gives the best tours. Except I’d hope to travel coach at least.

HAWK: I feel like I’ve got orders to be somewhere, is all.

B.J.: Since when do you care about orders?

HAWK: I like to know what they are so I can make sure I’m defying them.

_Father Mulcahy (MULCAHY) enters from stage right. He is wearing standard army-wear and his cross._

HAWK: Ah, here’s someone! Father!

MULCAHY: Hawkeye! Looks like B.J. managed to stay beautiful until you got back. ( _Pauses, frowns._ ) You’re early, though.

HAWK: You know what they say about worms, and all that.

B.J.: What do they say about worms?

HAWK: Where there’s a worm, there’s a way. No. Where there’s a will, there’s a worm? Oh, I’ll get it right one of these days.

B.J.: But if you keep getting it left, maybe they’ll let you leave.

MULCAHY: Oh, what _are_ you two talking about?

B.J.: We never know, father. What were we talking about, Hawk?

HAWK: Comedy or tragedy.

B.J.: Not this again. Why are you so fixated on this, Hawk?

HAWK: Well Colonel Potter’s all out of cigars at the moment, but I’ve got to have something. Comedy or tragedy, father?

MULCAHY: Shouldn’t you know the odds before you start placing bets?

B.J.: I don’t know that, but I can tell you the evens.

HAWK: Oh haha. Well, last anyone told me, there was a war on. That’s a point for tragedy.

B.J.: And there don’t seem to be any women present, so who would we marry? Another point for tragedy.

HAWK: Well, if we’re following in the Shakespearian form of things, that’s no obstacle. No point.

MULCAHY: I don’t see why you’re so stuck on Shakespeare’s way of doing things, but to be following true Shakespearian form, one of you would still have to be playing the role of the woman.

HAWK: Don’t be so old-fashioned, father. Although maybe you’ve got a point. The Greeks were doing it long before Shakespeare.

B.J.: Doing what?

HAWK: Tragedies and comedies.

B.J.: Ah, of course.

HAWK: Although I don’t think we quite fit into the Greek model of things, either. How does it go?

MULCAHY: There’s a monologue at the beginning.

B.J.: Hawk was just monologuing.

HAWK: But was that the beginning? ( _B.J. shrugs._ ) Half a point, then. Alright, what else have we got? There doesn’t seem to be any chorus.

MULCAHY: Oh, can’t you hear them?

HAWK: Hear who?

MULCAHY: Tell a joke.

_B.J. and HAWK look at each other. Then:_

HAWK: A priest and two doctors walk into the officer’s club. The bartender says, “It’s a shame one of you isn’t a lawyer, then we might’ve had a joke to lighten up the place.” Oh, that’s bad. I don’t usually have to tell those start to finish.

_MULCAHY puts a finger to his lips, then points upwards with his other hand. Suddenly, the sound of canned laughter. MULCAHY seems unsurprised, while both HAWK and B.J. are taken aback._

HAWK: You mean to tell me you’ve been hearing that this whole time?

MULCAHY: I suppose I’m just not quite righteous enough to hear the music of angels.

B.J.: How often do they laugh at us?

MULCAHY: Not as often as you’d think.

HAWK: And all they ever do is laugh? ( _MULCAHY nods_ ). Definitely points toward comedy.

B.J.: Doesn’t that seem just a little too on the nose to you?

HAWK: A point toward both, then.

B.J.: I don’t see why you’re so intent on this, Hawk. Can’t we let it go?

HAWK ( _shakes his head_ ): I can’t help feeling there’s something I’m meant to be doing right now. Remember what I said earlier about having to know the orders in order to defy them?

( _B.J. shakes his head_ )

HAWK ( _intense_ ): You don’t remember?

B.J.: No, I remember, I just don’t know what you’re on about.

HAWK ( _relaxing visibly, but only for a moment_ ): Well, that’s all right then. What else do we have? In the Greek form of things, the violence isn’t shown. The action comes from the repeated interactions of the characters with the aftermath of the violence.

B.J.: That’s not tragedy, that’s trauma.

HAWK: Maybe nowadays.

B.J.: Well isn’t it now?

HAWK: When is “now”?

B.J.: And how is now, and how now brown cow.

HAWK: B.J., this is serious!

B.J. ( _gesturing to MULCAHY_ ): And this is Mulcahy.

MULCAHY: I think B.J.’s got a bit of point, Hawk. There’s lots of elements missing. I certainly don’t think there’s unity of time that the classic Greek plays require. We’ve been at this M*A*S*H unit much longer than twenty-four hours.

HAWK: If it’s not a tragedy or comedy, maybe it’s a history.

B.J.: A history?

HAWK: Shakespeare wrote those too. _For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel. / Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!_

B.J.: Julius Caesar?

HAWK: The one and only.

B.J.: How is that different from a tragedy, really?

HAWK: Well, it all actually happened, is all.

B.J.: Did it? Exactly as he wrote it?

HAWK: Did this?

B.J.: Shakespeare certainly didn’t write this.

HAWK: Although the innuendo at times might have us believe otherwise.

B.J.: What innuendo?

HAWK: Oh, now you’re just being willfully obtuse. Still, you might have a point. I don’t know that this is all actually how it happened either.

B.J.: Hawk, it _is_ happening.

MULCAHY: The Lord Almighty has sworn, “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen.” (2)

HAWK: You say the Lord planned it. But did he write it?

MULCAHY: Write what?

HAWK: Write this.

MULCAHY: Someone did. ( _A look of concentration flashes across his face._ ) If only I could find my Bible. I know I set it down somewhere.

_MULCAHY goes over to the desk and looks through the pile of papers before picking something up. It is an unbound book – it looks like a thick script, held together by brass tacks. He returns to B.J. and HAWK’s sides holding it._

MULCAHY: Here we go.

B.J.: What’s it say?

_MULCAHY flips to somewhere in the middle of the book._

MULCAHY ( _reading from the book_ ): Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (3)  
( _Pause_ ) Wait, no, that’s not the part we want. Let me see.

_He flips back, but only a little, and reads again from the book._

MULCAHY ( _reading_ ): “Yankakovich perfected the strategy of making the most moronic move possible in order to lull his opponent.” (4)

HAWK: That’s right! I remember that.

_HAWK walks over to the table and considers the chess board. B.J. and MULCAHY turn and watch him as he does so._

HAWK ( _gesturing to the board_ ): Here it is! The Yankakovich!

B.J.: I don’t remember that.

HAWK: You weren’t… I don’t think you were there.

B.J. ( _to MULCAHY_ ): Does it say anything about me?

MULCHAY: Oh yes. ( _flipping through the book a bit more_ ) Here we go. “How long could it take to make one lousy phone call?” (5)

_B.J. frowns._

B.J.: That’s right. Klinger. I was trying to get Klinger to get a call through. Only I can’t remember to where. To Peggy? ( _Pause. The others regard B.J.._ ) Doesn’t it say anywhere in that book of yours?

MULCAHY: Oh, yes, of course it does, only I don’t know if I ought to tell you.

B.J.: Why not?

MULCAHY: I don’t know if I ought to tell you that either.

HAWK: I don’t get it. Are you in there at all?

MULCAHY: Oh, yes, of course. ( _Looks a little further down the page and reads without great emotion_ ) “Listen, Hawkeye, you let me handle this, or I swear I swear I'll flatten you.” (6)

HAWK ( _putting his hands up in mock surrender_ ): Whoa there father! No need to get violent with me!

MULCAHY: That’s just what it says here on the page.

_HAWK abandons interest in the chess set and walks back over to where MULCAHY and B.J. stand. He looks over MULCAHY’s shoulder at the book._

HAWK: Does it? Let me see.

_MULCAHY shifts so that HAWK can read the page but doesn’t hand the book over to him. HAWK reads for a minute, then laughs._

HAWK: Oh, that’s right. You jumped right onto my back, then ruined General Kratzer's dinner.

B.J. ( _looking put out_ ): I don’t remember that either!

HAWK: Well, you weren’t there. ( _Pause_ ) Wait, only that happened ages before… I mean, I think that—The chess game with Charles came much later. Are you sure that’s how it is on the page? After the chess game?

MULCAHY: See for yourself. ( _MULCAHY flips back a few pages but again does not hand the book over to HAWK. Again, HAWK reads for a minute, now looking troubled._ )

HAWK: It’s all out of order.

MULCAHY: Well, if you’re thinking in linear time, maybe.

B.J.: What other time is there to think in?

MULCAHY: Liturgical, for one. ( _HAWK and B.J. look at him blankly._ ) You know, how every year there’s the same calendar, the same rituals to be done. Easter. Ash Wednesday. You take the wafer and the wine into your mouth not just like others beside you but like others before you. Ritual aims not to move forward but to repeat.

HAWK: So it’s something even the dead can participate in?

MULCAHY: Well I don’t know if I would quite put it that way. It’s something the dead _have_ participated in.

HAWK: So is life.

MULCAHY: Well, if you want to put it that way.

HAWK: But I don’t see—I mean, what, so you stand there—

MULCAHY: You kneel.

HAWK: You kneel before the priest, and you eat the bread—

MULCAHY: The Eucharist.

HAWK: You eat the Eucharist like everyone else, but I bet sometimes you have to be thinking, like, Man, my knees sure are bugging me today, or, oh, this tile’s really cold. _That_ can’t possibly be like every time before.

MULCAHY: Well, yes, the same actions are done each time, but I wasn’t trying to imply total unity of experience.

B.J.: But, no, wait—I mean, I see what you’re saying. There’s other—trauma… I mean, when you’ve got trauma, that’s something that repeats itself, you know, the flashbacks, you feel like you’re there again. Even in your dreams.

HAWK: Even in your dreams…

MULCAHY: Yes, exactly. It repeats itself—well, Sidney might say until you can integrate it into the narrative.

HAWK: Well, this can’t be trauma, though.

B.J.: No one’s saying this is trauma.

HAWK: I mean, because it’s definitely _in_ a narrative. ( _He points to the book that MULCAHY holds_.) Although I’m still not sure _what_ narrative exactly. This all seems just a little unfair to me. It’s written and so it happens? Since when is that how anything works?

B.J.: They wrote up our draft papers and now here we are.

MULCAHY: There’s quite the precedent for that sort of thing. ( _Again he quotes from the Bible, but this time does not look down at the book in his hand to do so._ ) “The tongue has the power of life and death / and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (7) God said, “Let there be light” and then there was light. It’s the priest’s blessing, spoken aloud, which accomplishes the transubstantiation, wherein the wine becomes not just itself but also Christ’s blood.

HAWK: So you religious types have been running around with the power of life and death in your tongues this whole time? And you didn’t think to tell all our patients they’d live?

MULCAHY ( _laughs_ ): I wish it were that simple. But it’s not just us “religious types” who’ve got that kind of power. It’s the lovers’ “I do” which seals the marriage.

HAWK: So again it comes down to the question of marriage or death. Although I don’t see how the lover’s vow is the same as the blessing of the priest on the wine and bread.

MULCAHY: They’re not married until they say, “I do.” The words affect the world, they change the state of being.

HAWK: A kid says “bang” and his friend falls down dead.

B.J.: Truman says “war” and five million people die.

HAWK: No, no, Truman says “military engagement.”

MULCAHY: I don’t know if the two of you are really grasping my meaning.

HAWK: Well, what does it say in that book of yours? Do we get it eventually? Maybe we can just skip ahead to that part.

MULCAHY ( _crossly_ ): It doesn’t have everything.

HAWK: No? What doesn’t it have?

MULCAHY: Well there’s nothing… ( _flipping to the front of the book and looking briefly as though to double check_ ) There’s nothing before the war.

B.J.: Well it certainly feels that way sometimes but I like to think…

HAWK ( _suddenly urgent_ ): How’s it start?

MULCAHY ( _reciting without having to read from the book_ ): Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep— (8)

HAWK: No, before that.

MULCAHY ( _flipping to the very front of the book and reading_ ): “Korea, 1950… A hundred years ago…” (9)

B.J. ( _laughing_ ): A hundred years ago! It certainly does feel like that. Well, there’s your answer, Hawk. A history, and definitely in Korea.

HAWK: _Are_ we in Korea, or does it just _say_ we’re in Korea?

B.J.: _I_ say we’re in Korea.

HAWK: And you say it’s one hundred years ago?

B.J.: One hundred years ago from what? It’s just a silly book, Hawk. I thought you didn’t believe in this stuff. No offense, father.

MULCAHY: Oh, no offense taken. I’m just playing my part.

HAWK: Well if that’s how it starts, how does it—( _he starts to pace_ ) No, maybe I don’t want—but you’re right, only I can’t help feeling…

MULCAHY: You want to know how it ends?

_HAWK stops pacing and shakes his head._

HAWK: Maybe I don’t.

MULCAHY ( _reciting without looking down at the book_ ): I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll. He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. (10)

B.J. ( _looking at Hawk, who appears distressed_ ): Oh, will you get out of here with all that!

MULCAHY ( _nods_ ): You’re right, you’re right, I’m going. I’ve already had much more air time than I was supposed to as it is.

_MULCAHY begins to exit stage right._

B.J. ( _calling after him_ ): I’m sorry father! That’s not what I meant.

_MULCAHY stops, but does not turn around. Instead, he kneels and sets the unbound book on the stage. Then he exits stage right._

B.J. ( _looking at where the book lies_ ): Well.

HAWK: I just don’t—

_HAWK goes over to the book, but doesn’t pick it up. He stands looking down at it. Finally, he picks it up, but he doesn’t open it. He stands, holding it, considering its size._

HAWK: Who the hell has time to do this much writing?

B.J.: We write, too.

HAWK: Huh?

B.J. ( _speaking as though to convince himself as much as HAWK_ ): Letters home. And we get letters back. That’s some proof, isn’t it? That they’re still out there. Everyone from before the war. Everything beyond here, beyond Seoul.

HAWK: I think I was writing something else, earlier. I need to get back to it. Not a letter exactly…

_HAWK puts the book down and walks over to the table. He picks up the Groucho glasses, contemplating them._

B.J.: I mean, where would we be getting those letters from, otherwise?

_While HAWK further contemplates the items on the desk (bathrobe, a pair of Groucho glasses, a Hawaiian shirt, a copy of The Last of the Mohicans), B.J. goes over to where the unbound book lies. He picks it up and flips to the beginning, reading to himself. After a minute of this, he goes over to where HAWK is._

B.J.: Look at this! I’m not in this at all.

_HAWK abandons interest in the items on the desk and turns his attention to B.J., taking the book from him and reading for a minute._

HAWK: It doesn’t even start when the war starts! _Golf?_ It starts with me _golfing_? If I’d known _that_ was what was going to get us into this mess, I would’ve given it up _much_ earlier.

B.J.: Since when do you golf?

HAWK: I used to. Never again, _certainly_ not after reading this.

B.J.: But I mean – I’m not in there at all, at first.

_HAWK flips through the book for a while. Finally, he stops on a page and points to it._

HAWK: Here you are.

_B.J. looks over his shoulder._

HAWK ( _reading from the book_ ): Captain Pierce… Anything I can help with? Can I help? (11) ( _He closes the book._ ) I liked you right from the beginning.

B.J.: But nothing about me before then?

HAWK ( _upset_ ): Well there’s nothing about me before the golfing either!

B.J.: I just… all those letters to Peggy… Is she—I mean…

HAWK ( _almost goading_ ): Yes, you know much more than I do what Father Mulcahy was talking about, don’t you? Word as action? You said, “I do” with Peggy, didn’t you?

B.J.: I think—I mean… ( _He sits down in the desk chair and puts his head in his hands_ ) I don’t know. It’s all jumbled up now.

HAWK ( _seeming to snap out of it_ ): Aw, Beej, I’m sorry. Look, I’m just in a bad mood, is all. I’ve got all these holes in my memory, and I feel like I’ve got something to do…

B.J.: What does it say at the end?

HAWK: I don’t know.

B.J.: Well, look!

HAWK: What if I don’t want to. What if it’s bad luck!

B.J.: You want to know how this ends, don’t you? Well look and see!

HAWK: I’m not so sure anymore.

B.J.: Why are you so concerned with a funeral or a marriage, anyway? We’re ages past the convention.

HAWK: I just feel…

_HAWK puts the book down on a far corner of the desk, out of B.J.’s reach. He begins to look through the papers in the desk. B.J. watches him. After a long while, HAWK pulls a specific piece of paper out of the pile._

HAWK: Here it is. That’s what I was writing. A will.

B.J. ( _concerned_ ): A will?!

HAWK ( _reading from the paper_ ): I, Benjamin Franklin Pierce, being of sound mind and endangered body, hereby decree this to be my last will and testament. I bequeath to my father all my worldly possessions with the exception of the following— (12)

B.J.: Stop! Alright, enough. Why the hell would you be writing a will? ( _He rips the paper out of HAWK’s hands and reads part of it, but doesn’t make it through the whole thing before setting it down. HAWK looks unperturbed._ )

HAWK: My mother died when I was very young. Did I ever tell you that?

_B.J. shakes his head._

B.J.: You never told me that.

HAWK: Well she did. She died when I was young. Ten years old. She used to take me to musicals. To plays. After she died, my father wouldn’t take me. Not for three or four years. There was one play that came out. I read about in the paper. Not the local paper – our neighbor had one of the big names. I’d steal it off her porch most Tuesdays because that was when they published the _Arts and Culture_ section. I could have just asked her. She probably would have given me the paper after she was done. But I couldn’t ask. I stole it.

There was this play I read about then. _Eurydice_. You know, from the Greek myth. Only in this play – this one wasn’t about him losing her, so much. It was about how you forget, once you’re dead. Eurydice was afraid of forgetting. Of forgetting Orpheus, of forgetting language.

There was one picture in the paper, of the set. They had a elevator that rained. I kept that article for years. It’s still – I mean… ( _he pauses, looks confused for a second before continuing_ ) the clipping is still back in Crabapple Cove. I wanted to see it more than anything, but I knew there was no way my dad would take me all the way to Boston just to see a play. I didn’t even ask. I spent years imagining how it went, though.

Then, when I was in a bookstore in college, quite by accident, I came across a copy of the play. I couldn’t believe it. I took it home and read it immediately. And you know what?

B.J.: What?

HAWK: It wasn’t as good as I’d imagined it in my head.

B.J.: So did she forget?

HAWK: What?

B.J.: Did she forget. Language. Orpheus.

HAWK: What do you think. It was a tragedy. Of course she forgot.

B.J.: What was the tragedy?

HAWK: What?

B.J.: What was the tragedy? Was it that she forgot Orpheus or that she forgot language?

HAWK: They’re one and the same. It’s not two separate questions.

B.J.: How did it go in your head?

HAWK: What?

B.J.: I mean, did you imagine her forgetting, too? Did you imagine a happier ending?

HAWK: I didn’t let myself get that far.

B.J.: What? In all those years, imagining the play, you never pictured the ending?

HAWK: Well, I knew it was a tragedy. Hundreds of adaptations, and it’s always a tragedy. So I just never let myself get that far.

B.J.: But you weren’t—I mean, couldn’t you have pictured something else?

HAWK: But I would’ve known it couldn’t have happened that way.

B.J.: But you said it was worse—I mean, you said it didn’t happen how you imagined anyway. Why not picture the happy ending while you’re at it?

HAWK: I would’ve known it wasn’t real.

B.J.: But so many years of having it all in your head…

HAWK: After you see how it’s supposed to go, after you see it written down on the page like that… Well, maybe I do believe a little bit about what Father Mulcahy said. Language makes it true. What you have in your head… that was when I was a kid. It couldn’t stand up against what she wrote.

B.J.: But you still remember how it went, in your head.

HAWK: I do.

B.J.: The lover’s vow makes it so. ( _Pause_ ) So that’s why you don’t want to look at the end, then.

_He looks pointedly at the unbound book. HAWK follows his gaze._

HAWK ( _defeated_ ): Once I know how it’s supposed to go, I’m worried I won’t be able to imagine anything else.

B.J.: He said it doesn’t have everything. ( _HAWK gives him a questioning glance_ ). Mulcahy. He said it doesn’t have everything. I mean, you saw for yourself. There’s nothing before the war.

HAWK: But this whole time, I’ve been worried—I mean, as soon as I read that, it just seemed to confirm…

B.J.: You’re really letting this get to your head, Hawk. Are you telling me you don’t think anything before the war was… was _real_? Your mother, the plays, Crabapple Cove, you’re telling me it all doesn’t exist? You just told me that whole story, about the bookshop and _Eurydice_. You’re saying you made that up.

HAWK: No, I’m saying—I mean, maybe it was real, but it isn’t anymore. I don’t know. How can we be sure?

B.J. ( _indignant_ ): How can we be…

 _B.J. turns back to the desk and begins to look through the papers, pulling out a few specific ones, as well as photograph that he unearths_.

B.J. ( _showing HAWK what he’s found_ ): Look, there. A letter from Peg. Another letter from Peg. A picture of her. Of Erin.

_HAWK looks at it all but says nothing. B.J. turns back to the desk and grabs one of the maps. Turning back around, he opens it up and points to somewhere specific, showing HAWK, who looks where he’s pointing._

B.J.: Look, here. Right here. That’s Mill Valley. That’s where I live, with Peg. With Erin. That’s Stanford. That’s where I studied medicine.

HAWK ( _without much emotion_ ): It looks very nice, Beej.

B.J.: You still don’t believe me, do you?

_B.J. sets the map down and turns back around to the desk, where he retrieves another map. Unfolding it, he begins to look for something, only he can’t seem to find it. HAWK watches him look for a minute before he speaks._

HAWK: Can’t find it?

B.J.: I don’t… it doesn’t make any sense. Crabapple Cove. I don’t see it.

_HAWK takes the map from B.J. and looks for himself for a while. After a minute, he starts to laugh._

HAWK ( _pointing at the map_ ): There it is.

B.J.: What? I don’t see anything. It says “Bremen” there.

HAWK: Yep, right where Crabapple Cove should be.

B.J.: Are you sure Bremen isn’t just a larger town? Maybe Crabapple Cove was too small to be included on this map.

HAWK: Never heard of a Bremen in my life. There’s smaller towns on this map. Look, there’s Yellow Head, right there, which I know for a fact is just as small as Crabapple. I’ve been _there_.

B.J.: Don’t… this isn’t funny, Hawk. Stop pulling pranks. I’ve got…

HAWK: Trust me, if I were going to invent a town name and stick to it for years just to prank you, I would’ve come up with something better than Crabapple Cove. _Crabapple_?

B.J.: I don’t… I’m getting out of here for a minute. I’m going to clear my head.

_B.J. exits stage right. HAWK watches calmly. After a minute, B.J. re-enters from stage left, looking disoriented._

HAWK: What did you see?

B.J.: Not… not much. I’m not sure. ( _Pause_ ) So what… just where the hell _are_ we?

HAWK: That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time!

B.J.: Are we… are we dreaming?

HAWK: Some dream this is!

B.J.: But I think I was… there was some sort of dream I was having… you were there.

HAWK ( _like a schoolgirl_ ): Oh? Tell me more.

B.J. ( _frowning_ ): I can’t remember.

HAWK: Well that’s no fun.

B.J.: I mean… it makes a certain kind of sense. It’s like trauma dreams. Working through it until you can fit it into the narrative.

HAWK: So you’re comparing being here with me to a trauma-induced nightmare?

B.J.: No! No. I only meant… you were right, before. I don’t know what narrative this fits into.

HAWK: I’m not so sure I want to know anymore.

B.J.: Why not?

HAWK: There are some things… I’m afraid it won’t be the narrative I want.

B.J.: What narrative do you want?

HAWK: What narrative do _you_ want?

 _Silence_.

B.J.: We could just look at the back of the book.

_B.J. moves as if to reach for the book._

HAWK: Don’t. Please.

_B.J. stops._

HAWK: Look, tell me something we know isn’t in there. From before the war.

B.J.: From before the war… what do you want to hear? Something about Peg, about Erin?

_HAWK shakes his head._

HAWK: Tell me something else. Something earlier. When you were a kid.

B.J.: When I was a kid…( _Silence for a moment as he contemplates_.) Did know I was born in Truckee, actually? Before my folks moved down to San Francisco.

HAWK: Where’s Truckee?

B.J.: It’s this tiny town in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. A ski town, mostly. I could show you on a map if… Well, let’s not bother with that. I don’t want to know.

HAWK: So you were born in Truckee.

B.J.: Yeah. Lived there till I was about seven years old. Then we moved down to the city. It’s only between a three or four hour drive, but it’s a pretty devastating distance for a little kid. All my friends were back there, you know?

 _HAWK nods_.

B.J.: There was this one kid… Ethan, was his name. He had this great tree house. You know, I missed that a lot, when we moved down to San Francisco. All those trees around us for miles. The Eucalyptus that they brought in for the railroads in San Francisco, those just weren’t the same. Nothing like the pine trees up in the mountains. You walk into the forest up there and the world gets quiet and you imagine that if you kept going it’d get denser and denser until all you could see was trees, not even the sky… 

Ethan and I would play Robin Hood. It always felt like we might actually run into the some bandits in the wood or something. Once we got to San Francisco it felt… less magic. Like just a city. My mom used to take me down to the ocean, and she’d make up stories about pirate ships sailing out on the water. But by then I knew they were just stories. All I could see were cargo ships. The way Ethan used to tell stories, they might’ve been real.

Anyway… There was this tiny backyard in the apartment we were renting. We lived on the second story, and there were these wooden stairs off the kitchen that led straight down into the backyard, only my mom never let me go down them. She said they were falling apart. She always made me go out the front door, down, and all the way around through the side gate. I didn’t spend much time in the backyard. We lived right up near where the Presidio was, a dead end street, so other kids would play out front, basket ball at the end of the street, or they’d hop over the wall into the Presidio and play in the trees there. I used to hate the smell of Eucalyptus, when I first moved to San Francisco. I got used to it and became friends with the other kids soon enough.

But still… I had this dream, one time, about three months after we moved. In the dream, I woke up, and I was in my new room. I got out of bed. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I just started to walk around the house. It felt so real. I remember I was worried my parents would wake up and get mad at me for being out of bed so late. But I just kept walking. I got to the kitchen, and there was the door and those stairs I wasn’t allowed to go down. But there was no one to see me. So I opened up the door, and I stepped out onto them. They felt rickety, but I made my way down, and at the bottom, there was the forest. There was Ethan. We didn’t even do much. Just horsed around like we always did.

After I woke up, I spent all morning staring at that door. I think my mom could tell something was up, but she didn’t ask me about it. Finally, she went to go read in the living room, or sew, or something, and I told her I was going to play in my room. But I snuck back into the kitchen. For a second I couldn’t get the side door open – I think the wood was warped. It was old and the door hadn’t been opened for a while. But I was so determined, little seven-year old me, that I got it eventually. I got out on the stairs. They were a little unstable, maybe, but not that bad. Not as bad, even, as they’d been in the dream. ( _He trails off for a moment, lost in thought_.)

HAWK ( _anxiously_ ): What happened?

B.J. ( _laughs_ ): Well, I got to the bottom of the stairs and there it was, my same old backyard in the city. My mom heard me come back in and scolded me for sneaking out. That was the end of it.

HAWK ( _laughing_ ): I really thought you were going to make it back to Truckee. Down the stairs and into the forest.

B.J.: Me too! ( _Pause_ ) Your turn.

HAWK: I don’t think I have anything as good as that.

B.J.: No, I want to hear it. Fair’s fair.

_HAWK thinks for a minute._

HAWK: Okay. When I was a kid, I didn’t have an… an Ethan. I didn’t get along well with the other boys.

B.J.: Aw, no. Poor little Hawkeye.

HAWK: Don’t interrupt me!

B.J.: Okay.

HAWK: That’s still interrupting.

_B.J. mimes zipping his lips._

HAWK ( _smiles_ ): Anyway, I didn’t get along well with the other little boys, but there were a few little girls on my street who loved me.

B.J.: Oh, a real ladies man, huh?

HAWK: Shhhh!

_B.J. gives him an apologetic look._

HAWK: It wasn’t like that. Will you be quiet and let me finish? ( _Silence._ ) There was this girl on my street named Anna. She was a year older than me, and her parents would let her see all kinds of movies that my parents wouldn’t, not while my mom was alive, at least. Do you remember when _Dracula_ , _Frankenstein_ , _and Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde_ all came out the same year?

_B.J. nods._

B.J.: I went to go see them all.

HAWK: Of course you did, you bastard. Let me tell my story!

B.J.: You asked me a question!

HAWK: It was rhetorical! Anyway, well _my_ parents wouldn’t let me go to them. Probably for good reason. But Anna got to see them all, and she’d always come back from the movies and tell me everything that had happened. I loved it, and then I’d have nightmares about it for months, based just on her stories and the posters I’d seen. I think hearing her tell it was more affecting than just actually seeing the movie would’ve been.

B.J.: Aw. You were a sensitive kid.

HAWK: Shut up or I won’t tell you any more.

B.J.: There’s more?

HAWK: That was all just an aside. What I was _going_ to tell you was that she also had roller skates. I begged my parents to get me some, too. They went on and on about how dangerous roller skates were, and how they absolutely wouldn’t be getting me any, but then that Christmas, I opened up my first present and there they were: Roller skates! And my parents both shrugged and said they couldn’t help what Santa brought.

I had to wait ages, of course, for it to get warm and not icy. So that was poor timing on their part. Still, that next Spring, Anna started teaching me how to roller skate. I had two whole glorious months of roller skating with Anna Gershwin until I fell and broke my right elbow.

B.J.: Oh no! What happened after that?

HAWK: I had to wear a sling for a while, and Anna started roller skating with Louise Linfield. By the time I was better, I couldn’t keep up with either of them. Besides, I was pretty scared of breaking my elbow again. That was about the last time I participated in any sort of physical activity willingly, I think.

B.J.: Except the golf.

_HAWK makes a face._

HAWK: That hardly counts as physical activity. That was mostly a joke, anyway.

B.J.: A joke?

HAWK: Yeah, just something Trapper and I did to pass the time. I don’t know where he even got the clubs. We made up rules for ourselves. It wasn’t like we had a green with eighteen holes.

_B.J. makes a face._

B.J.: Tell me something that didn’t happen.

HAWK: What?

B.J.: You know, like one of our fantasies. How we always do.

HAWK: Oh, okay. ( _He thinks for a minute, then rubs his hands together_.) Okay, this one’s really good.

B.J. ( _smiling_ ): Yeah?

HAWK: Yeah. Okay, so, you’re back in the states. Someone comes and rings your door.

B.J.: Who is it?

HAWK: It’s Katherine Hepburn. She’s wearing that really crazy veil and the shiny dress that she wore in _Bringing Up Baby_.

B.J. ( _laughing_ ): I know the one.

HAWK: She tells you she’s got a car waiting out front. It’s a Rolls Royce, of course.

B.J.: Of course.

HAWK: She takes you to the Ritz. And there I am, with Rosalind Russell.

B.J.: Rosalind Russell?

HAWK: Yeah, wearing one of those suits like she did in _His Gal Friday_. I always liked a woman in a suit.

B.J.: _His Gal Friday_. Another Cary Grant movie.

HAWK: He’s a swell guy. That’s besides the point. Don’t you want to know what happens next?

B.J.: Of course I do.

HAWK: We sit down to dinner, and the women ignore us all night.

B.J.: They do?!

HAWK: They’re much too good for us, Beej, what did you think would happen? They order two bottles of the most expensive champagne on the menu, and then about halfway through dinner they make their excuses and leave early.

B.J. ( _laughing_ ): They do?

HAWK: They do.

B.J.: So what do we do next?

HAWK: Well we order two more bottles of champagne, of course, and we close the place down!

B.J.: Is that it?

HAWK: That’s it. Your turn.

B.J.: My turn? My turn. Hmm, let’s see. ( _still laughing a little_ ) I don’t know if I can top that one. ( _He thinks for a minute. When he tells his story he takes a much more serious tone. HAWK’s story emboldened him, just a bit._ ) Well, I always thought, you know, that after the war was over, I’d come down to Crabapple Cove.

HAWK ( _guarded_ ): Oh really?

B.J. ( _smiling_ ): Really. And I thought, you know, I’d show up at your door.

HAWK ( _joking_ ): With flowers, I hope.

B.J.: With flowers. I’d show up at your door with flowers, and I’d take you dancing.

HAWK: With what girls?

B.J.: With just us.

HAWK: There’s not anywhere to go dancing in Crabapple Cove, you know.

B.J.: Well in my version of it there is.

HAWK: That’s it?

B.J.: There’s more.

( _Silence_.)

HAWK: What’s the rest of it?

B.J. ( _after a pause_ ): What did you mean, earlier, when you said you were afraid it wouldn’t be the narrative you want?

_HAWK doesn’t answer._

B.J.: I used to wonder, sometimes, you know… I used to wonder, if I had never met Peg, and I came to the front and you were here…

HAWK ( _softly_ ): What would’ve happened?

B.J.: Well, I don’t know. Because that’s not what happened.

HAWK: Is it?

B.J.: I remember marrying her, Hawk. At least… I think I do.

HAWK: What if we really are dead, Beej?

B.J.: Don’t say that.

HAWK: Would it be so bad? We’re still here. Both of us, I mean. If we were dead…

B.J.: If we were dead, we’d be dead.

HAWK: Apparently not.

B.J.: You don’t know that we’re dead, Hawk.

HAWK: I wrote a will.

B.J.: That doesn’t mean anything. I wrote a letter home.

HAWK: Are you saying that doesn’t mean anything?

B.J. ( _hesitating_ ): If we were dead, maybe it wouldn’t. ( _He shakes his head_.) No. So then it would be a tragedy.

HAWK: The rules are different, for us.

B.J.: What do you mean?

HAWK: I mean, Mulcahy was right. With two men, in a comedy, it couldn’t end in a marriage.

B.J.: So you’re saying there’s no way for this to be anything other than a tragedy?

HAWK: But in a tragedy… ( _He quotes now, from memory_.) I wish the world were ending tomorrow. Then I could take the next train, arrive at your doorstep in Vienna, and say: “Come with me, Milena. We are going to love each other without scruples or fear or restraint. Because the world is ending tomorrow.” Perhaps we don’t love unreasonably because we think we have time, or have to reckon with time. But what if we don't have time? Or what if time, as we know it, is irrelevant? Ah, if only the world were ending tomorrow. We could help each other very much.

B.J. ( _quietly_ ): That’s not Shakespeare.

HAWK: It’s better. It’s Kafka.

B.J.: So you’re saying if the world were ending... I don’t think we’re dead, Hawk. I think I’m dreaming. I remember, I was dreaming.

HAWK: Let’s look.

B.J.: What?

HAWK: Let’s see what it says. If you’re dreaming. If I’m dead.

B.J.: Are you sure you want to?

HAWK: Yes.

_HAWK goes over to the desk where the unbound book is and picks it up. B.J. follows and HAWK flips through the book until he seems to find the page he was looking for. He holds it open so B.J. can see as well. They stand close together, both reading silently to themselves. After a minute, they look up at each other, not moving apart._

B.J.: The stitches.

HAWK: So I don’t die. ( _Pause_ ) But you still say you’ll kiss me. Doesn’t that defy the genre?

B.J.: Not if it’s a joke.

HAWK: Is it a joke?

B.J.: You tell me I’m dreaming. It’s right there in the book, Hawk.

HAWK: I _say_ you’re dreaming. That doesn’t mean you are.

B.J.: Let’s see how it ends.

HAWK: What?

_Before HAWK can react, B.J. takes the book from him very suddenly and begins flipping to the very back. He begins to read to himself. At first, HAWK doesn’t look, but then he can’t help himself. After a minute, they begin to read aloud (each other’s lines), softly and in disbelief._

B.J.: Look, I know it’s tough for you to say good-bye, so I’ll say it. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we will see each other again, but just in case we don’t, I want you to know how much you’ve meant to me. I’ll never be able to shake you. Whenever I see a pair of big feet or a cheesy moustache, I’ll think of you.

HAWK: Whenever I smell month-old socks, I’ll think of you.

B.J.: Or the next time somebody nails my shoe to the floor…

HAWK: Or when somebody gives me a martini that tastes like lighter fluid.

B.J.: I’ll miss you.

HAWK: I’ll miss you a lot. I can’t imagine what this place would have been like if I hadn’t found you here. ( _A pause as he reads the stage directions._ ) See you in the States. I promise. But just in case, I left you a note.

B.J. ( _reading HAWK’s very last line so softly we almost can’t hear him_ ): What? (13)

_A pause as they read the final stage directions. HAWK goes to set down the book, but B.J. takes it from him and looks at it once more. They lapse into silence. Finally:_

B.J. ( _defeated, setting the book down_ ): So it’s not a tragedy.

HAWK: You’re telling me that’s not a tragedy?!

B.J.: The war ends. We don’t die. We go home.

HAWK: Where do we go?

B.J.: I don’t know.

HAWK: How can there be nothing else?

B.J.: I don’t know. ( _Pause. Then, not believing it himself, B.J. continues._ ) You know, just because it says that doesn’t mean that’s how it has to go.

HAWK: Of course that’s how it has to go. Orpheus always looks back.

B.J.: So I’m Orpheus? Because I turned around, came back?

HAWK ( _shakes his head_ ): No, I’m the one who didn’t… who can’t just trust… if it’s not there in writing… I look back, and that’s when it ends. I have to look back, see it written down…

B.J. ( _fiercly, grabbing HAWK by the shoulders_ ): It’s not your fault.

HAWK: Who’s fault is it, then?

B.J.: You still think about _Eurydice_ , right? Not just the play that you read but the one you made up and carried around in your head for years?

HAWK: I do.

B.J.: There are stories we tell ourselves…

HAWK: What story do you tell yourself?

B.J. ( _after a pause_ ): You know, when I write home, it’s you I write about.

HAWK ( _softly_ ): What story do you tell?

B.J.: If there’s no way we can get out of this… thing ( _he gestures to the book_ ) but through… Even then, I think I’m telling myself a different story than they’re telling. I don’t think that’ll stop.

HAWK: What was it that Mulcahy said? ( _He picks the book back up and flips through it until he finds the section he wants and reads._ ) I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll. He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. (14)

_HAWK sets the book back down._

B.J.: You don’t really believe that, do you?

HAWK ( _desperate_ ): I don’t know. I just don’t know if we can escape what it is that’s written.

B.J. ( _aware he is quoting himself, but meaning it_ ): How can I help?

_HAWK looks up at B.J., hesitating. He wants to ask for something, but he doesn’t know how._

HAWK: I need… do something they didn’t write for us.

_B.J. and HAWK are standing very close together. B.J. looks into HAWK’s eyes with some kind of question he doesn’t say aloud. He hesitates before he steps forward and kisses HAWK. HAWK hesitates for only a moment before reciprocating. It is exactly the kiss you would expect from two men who have been in love with each other since the very beginning of everything._

_B.J. pulls away first, laughing, smiling._

B.J.: Now I know I must be dreaming.

HAWK: You’ve dreamed about that before?

B.J.: I think I’ve dreamed that exact kiss.

HAWK: But what good will it do?

B.J.: What do you mean?

HAWK: In that book… how can it be really just the war? Not even just the war… the killing and the dying, that all happens offstage. Men get injured, off somewhere where we can’t see, and we try our best to save them, and if we succeed, they go off somewhere we can’t follow. Every week, the same. And nothing changes. You were right, Beej, about trauma, about how it gets you out of time, or stuck in it, or something. And all these words we didn’t write…

B.J.: But we say them.

HAWK: But we say them.

B.J.: No, Hawk, I mean, _we’re_ the ones who say it. No one else. Remember that time Frank had you court-marshaled?

HAWK: How could I forget?

B.J.: And you said he wanted your virginity?

HAWK: Of course.

B.J.: And I said, “We all do”?

HAWK: Yes.

B.J.: And you said…

HAWK: If only I’d known. (15)

B.J.: Was that a joke, to you?

HAWK: Mulcahy’s great laugh-track in the sky would certainly have us think so.

B.J.: But I mean…

HAWK ( _sighing_ ): No, I suppose not. I mean, it was, but it wasn’t.

B.J.: That’s what I mean. Without adding anything or taking anything away, it’s still ours. Everything I say, I mean.

HAWK: Certainly not everything, I hope.

B.J.: Everything about you, then.

HAWK ( _softly, after a pause_ ): Me too. But I don’t see how that helps us.

B.J.: You know, trauma isn’t the only thing that puts you out of time.

HAWK: No?

B.J.: I think they wrote my scenes out of order.

HAWK: What do you mean?

B.J.: Because I fell in love with you from the very beginning. I didn’t wait. I didn’t need to get to know you. I just saw you, and there it was.

HAWK: From the very beginning of what?

B.J.: The very beginning of everything. Remember what you said to me, right after you met me?

HAWK: I say a lot of things.

B.J.: You said, “Let’s go home.” (16)

HAWK: But I wish… Beej, this isn’t home. I just wish it could’ve happened anywhere else. In Crabapple cove, by the bay. Us wading in with our pants rolled up to our knees, beers kept cold in the ice chest, us complaining about the fishing. Both of us sixteen and you courting me out on the front porch, kissing right before curfew. Here, everything’s in the margins, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again after this, in a town that doesn’t exist.

B.J.: I’ll meet you there.

HAWK: How?

B.J.: After they’re done with us. We have to play the part out, but after that…

HAWK: We don’t know what comes after.

B.J.: Tell me how to get there.

HAWK: I don’t…

B.J.: Tell me.

HAWK: You have… You have to fly into Boston. You fly into Boston, and then you get on the 1-90 headed East. You follow that for about… about fifteen miles. A little less. You’re looking for I-95 North. You’ll see the signs. You’re on that for about one hundred and ten, one hundred fifteen miles. It’s exit… ( _he thinks_ ) It’s exit twenty-eight for US-1 North. Follow that for forty miles and it takes you right there.

B.J.: And how will it look when I get there?

HAWK: It’s just a little salt-box house right by the water. Dad added a porch but the wood doesn’t match. There’s a tree, right out front, that blossoms every year just for about two weeks.

B.J.: It’ll be Spring, when we’re home.

HAWK: It’ll be Spring.

B.J.: And I’ll walk up, in my ugliest Hawaiian shirt—

HAWK: And I’ll be waiting, right on there on the porch. Because I knew you were coming.

B.J.: And then I’ll say, “Long time no see, soldier,” only because I can’t say anything else.

HAWK: But I’ll know what you mean by it.

B.J.: And you’ll kiss me.

 _HAWK kisses him, then pulls away, waiting to hear the rest of the story_.

B.J.: And then I’ll get down on one knee.

 _B.J. gets down on one knee_.

B.J.: And I’ll say, “I knew the moment I met you, back in Korea a hundred years ago, when you were in the bad mood and the car was stolen, and you took me into the bar and roped me into tricking the colonel—

HAWK ( _smiling_ ): Hey, you were more than willing.

B.J. ( _smiling back_ ): You’re right, I was more than willing. Always have been with you. ( _Pause._ ) I knew that very first day. I thought, _This is the story I want to tell for the rest of my life. I want to still be telling this story when we’re seventy years old wearing our little knitted sweaters and the kids in town think we’re sweet but not as sharp as we used to be, and they ask all condescending how we met, I want to take your hand and tell this story, again._ ( _Pause._ ) So I’ll say that, and then I’ll get too choked up to say anything more than, “Will you marry me?”

HAWK: And I’ll say, “I will. I do.”

B.J. ( _smiling_ ): You’re skipping ahead, Hawk.

HAWK: Say it. Say, “I do.”

B.J.: I do.

 _They kiss, then pull away. B.J. looks down at the book_.

B.J.: We can’t stay away forever, Hawk.

HAWK: Couldn’t we?

B.J.: I can feel it pulling us back.

HAWK: I don’t want to go.

B.J.: I don’t think we have a choice.

_Pause. HAWK tries to fight it. They both do. Then:_

HAWK: Down the stairs into the forest, then?

B.J.: Don’t turn around. ( _Pause_ ) And know that I’ll mean it. Every word I say.

HAWK: I do. I will. I’ll mean it, too. You know that, don’t you?

B.J.: I do.

( _Pause_ )

B.J. ( _wide awake_ ): Hey. When I wake up, remind me to give you a kiss.

HAWK ( _affectionately_ ): Go back to sleep. You're dreaming. (17)

END

**Author's Note:**

> Footnotes:
> 
> (1) Genesis 1:2-3 (New International Version)  
> (2) Isaiah 14:24 (New International Version)  
> (3) Genesis 1:2-3 (New International Version)  
> (4) “Where There’s a Will, There’s a WAR”, M*A*S*H s10e16  
> (5) ibid  
> (6) ibid  
> (7) Proverbs 18:21 (New International Version)  
> (8) Genesis 1:2 (New International Version)  
> (9) “Pilot”, M*A*S*H s01e01  
> (10) Revelation 22:18-20 (New International Version)  
> (11) “Welcome to Korea”, M*A*S*H s04e01  
> (12) “Where There’s a Will, There’s a WAR”, M*A*S*H s10e16  
> (13) “Goodbye, Farwell and Amen”, M*A*S*H s11e16  
> (14) Revelation 22:18-20 (New International Version)  
> (15) “The Novocain Mutiny”, M*A*S*H s04e21  
> (16) “Welcome to Korea”, M*A*S*H s04e01  
> (17) “Where There’s a Will, There’s a WAR”, M*A*S*H s10e16, inflection all theirs
> 
> _This work takes inspiration from (and probably mangles the ideas of) not just Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead but also Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice (and the accompanying Toby Twining Soundtrack), Heinrich von Kleist’s Penthesilea, Fritz Alwin Breithaupt’s analysis of trauma and the material reality of language in Kleist, Nancy Jay’s writing on transubstantiation and marriage vows, and dreams I had as a child, among other things._
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments are much appreciated!


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